Album Review: BUGGEDOut! Presents Suck My Deck - Suck My Deck

In a revamped re-launch Bugged Out reprise their rather ace Suck My Deck series with a set from everybody's new favourite electro rave duo, Simian Mobile Disco.

This latest Suck My Deck consists of a considerably more varied take on things than both Ivan Smagghe's or Damian Lazarus' and is more approachable as a result. Things kick off with Joakim's 'Drumtrax', taken from his excellent Monsters & Silly Songs long-player, it's a slow, somewhat restrained start to an album that is anything but elsewhere.

Liasons Dangereuses and Fast Eddie are thrown into the mix to provide prove a bit of retro savvy, contributing spikey post-punk and hip-house respectively, but for the most part this is recent stuff. Simian Mobile Disco's 'It's The Beat' gets things really going - you quite possibly know it but if you don't the album's almost worth buying for this alone, building from a hip-techno start into something much more melodic when the synths kick in - it's cold, melancholic and awesome. It sounds like the surface of another planet and it just might make the hairs on your neck stand up.

The somewhat minimal yet arse-shakingly funky 'The Madness of Moths' by Vincent Markowski builds into Holden's unapologetic 'Idiot', who proves yet again that he'll be damned if he's going to be contrained by anything as conservative as a genre. If you've not heard 'Idiot' it sounds like a Atari 2600 knocking you out cold with a lump of acid before running off with your car, girlfriend and career. It's ALIVE.

In a move that makes it sound like they were born to be together, SMD gentle massage 'Idiot' into Sebastian's 'Walkman', here pitched up considerably to turn it into something even more ferocious. You can tell you've arrived when you get an article in The Guardian's Guide - 2007 is going to be Ed Banger's year so you better get used this this in your face brand of French distorted house. Not that that should represent a problem - it's fucking awesome after all.

More French craziness comes in the form of Riton's mix of Para One's Midnight Swim. With the help of Switch's midas touch Ms. Thing's Love Guide successfully mixes ragga and dance hall with cranium crushing techno. Simian then go on to utterly destroy the Klaxon's Magick, reducing it to its core elements and reverse engineering nu-rave into a series of vocal cuts and stabbing synths. It's big, very loud, very clever and guaranteed to please almost any dancefloor in the country right now.

Moving into Suck My Deck's closing section, Alter Ego make Partial Arts' 'Trauermusik' somewhat less minimal with their fairly typical yet totally enjoyable squeaky acid. Kerowack's 'Naf Monk' sounds like it was literally created to kill anyone that listened to it and from this comes last-track but one, LFO's 'Freak'. Again, you probably know it, if you don't it's a cut-up mess of acid chaos that those around you will try and tell you isn't even music. Ignore them and play this loudly. Things are brought to a close proper with the eerie, Lynchian 'Love Without Sound' by The White Noise.

They also make it sound too easy, but in the form of Suck My Deck Simian Mobile Disco have created what BlackPlastic would argue is currently 2007's best mix album. It cares little for genre and absolutely nothing at all for the state of your ears but it is utterly glorious all the same. Here's hoping there's a shorter wait for the next Suck My Deck album, and that SMD's forthcoming artist album lives up to the building hype.

Single Review: Justice - D.A.N.C.E

Everyone loves Justice right? Right... So it's with great joy that BlackPlastic tucks into their forthcoming EP, D.A.N.C.E.

'D.A.N.C.E' is fairly typical Justice with a huge dollop of summer on the side. Chirpy vocals encourage you to "Do the dance" whilst a thick bass line keeps things moving along and some strings try and sound like 'Strings of Life'. It's good, and you know that the Justice long-player will be great. Everyone in the world seems to be loving D.A.N.C.E in fact - just take a look at some of the blogs.

However, just when you think things couldn't get anymore Daft Punk B.E.A.T turns up on the flip side and, holy crap, does this sound like the bastard love child of Daft Punk and the Go! Team?! Essentially B.E.A.T is a re-tooled version of D.A.N.C.E, with absolutely massive Daft Punk bass lines, ridiculous filtered disco bits, massive join-in, "what fucking 80s song did they come from?!" Go! Team style vox and a huge glass of sunshine.

BlackPlastic now thinks Justice and MSTRKRFT are having some sort of secret Daft Punk-off in an attempt to see who can turn into a pair of robots before selling out fastest... This isn't clever, it won't change your life. It will however give you the fucking biggest smile you've had since last summer, it will destroy the Terrace at Space if such a thing even still exists and it just might make you wonder why you need an 80gb MP3 player when this is the only song you ever need to hear again.

Check it out over at The Yellow Stereo.

Guilty Pleasure: Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend

What can be said about this other than it's an absolutely ridiculous, pop-punk re-imagining of Toni Basil's "Mickey"? Avril has obviously never represented BlackPlastic's usual choice of sound and should never, ever be enjoyed without your ironic shoes on, but damn, this is catchy.

So yeah, Avril could be my girlfriend, and she's all pissey about my current girlfriend so she's decided to construct a meaningful melody about it. And there's a rap bit which is frankly the best thing Avril's ever done - the sound of an artist saying "I don't give a fuck if you don't respect me anymore, now where are the dollars?". And if that's not punk, BlackPlastic don't know what is.

BlackPlastic even feels an empathic connection with this record. Truly.

She's like, so, whatever...

SIngle Review: Maxïmo Park - Our Velocity

Recently BlackPlastic was struck by a vision - in order to make a truly great, long-lasting pop record you need just follow one rule:

Make it sound like three records at once.

Example one: Outkast - 'Ghetto Musick'
It's obvious really, there's the stank-ing, jacking bit at the beginning. The bit about climbing out this whole. Then there's the fantastic vocal hook - "I just want you to know how I feeeeeeel..."

It's like a cut 'n' shut hip-pop record and you know you love it all the more for it. It's three choruses at once, all fighting for the honour of becoming the 'real' chorus. It's like most artist's entire best-of compilations in four minutes.

Example two: Radiohead - 'Paranoid Android'
Taking its cues from perhaps the earliest example of the phenomenon about which you read, Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody', 'Paranoid Android' starts all weird and disjointed before descending into a pit of weird disjointed-ness. There's the slightly scary, laid back bit at the beginning, the more scary shout-y bit in the middle with Johnny Greenwood's guitars sounding both pissed off and regal. Then there's the blissed out yet still tripped out and scary bit at the end, the sound of a gospel choir if it where made up not of a collection of singers but a collection of Thom Yorkes. Rain down on me indeed, this is the sound of nuclear fallout condensed into pop genius.

And so to our review, Maxïmo Park's 'Our Velocity'. Until recently BlackPlastic only ever seemed to hear 'Our Velocity' in a half sleep on a Saturday morning on the radio. BlackPlastic's thoughts where initially thus - "What the hell are they thinking, what's with the electronics and the fact it sounds like two songs?!"

Obviously BlackPlastic now realises if it had been fully compos mentis it would have realised the the electronic bits are freaking awesome and it actually sounds like 3.5 songs at once, not two...

Electronic waves float by whilst vocalist Paul Smith attempts to remember which bit of which song he's supposed to be on and whether he should be singing or, like, SHOUTING!!! And he's shouting and singing about, well God knows what, but it doesn't matter because a minute in and we are already somewhere else... Singing about velocity. Maybe we're singing about the song we're singing now? That would be clever, no? Oh, the electronic bits are back, but the guitars sound PISSED because they managed to carry the first album into moderate success, right?

Oh, oh, oh... Here's the other REALLY good bit... Paul's not sure who to call in the middle of the night anymore... That's a shame, but it sounds great! Woohoo! Now there seems to be another bit... Darker... "If everyone became this sensitive I wouldn't have to be so sensitive". Wise words.

Maxïmo Park's debut smacked of a band that could almost be great but needed to stop listening to Paul Weller. This record achieves that.

BlackPlastic needs a sit down.

Album Review: LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver

Every now and then a song comes out that defines a time, a feeling. It redefines what every considers the sound of the time. It messes with genres, starts scenes and starts nightclubs. It starts labels and DJs and bands. In 2002 when James Murphy released 'Losing My Edge' under the guise of LCD Soundsystem it was a call to arms. Self deprecating it may be, but it was also a sideways swipe at all those continually attempting to re-package and re-hype cool. It was a full stop on Electroclash and the start of something new, more intellectual yet at the same time less considered, more vital and raw.

LCD Soundsystem's first eponymous album was never, ever going to fully satisfy. Whilst it was, considered in the right light, a superb album, it almost seemed to lack a little vision. Whilst good by most bands standards, tracks like the Beatles-esque 'Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up' just felt like they lacked the balls displayed on earlier cuts like 'Beat Connection' (to this day possibly the best LCD Soundsystem track).

Sound of Silver is a different beast. Born out of the renewed enthusiasm Murphy developed whilst constructing his 45:33 piece for Nike from the opening stabs of 'Get Innocuous' Sound of Silver is instantly more ambitious, less content with replicating, more concerned with invention. Driving synth lines encircle Murphy's multi-layered vocals to create an irresistable groove by the time Nancy Wang's vocals kick in... "You can normalize, don't it make you feel alive". What is built must someday collapse and as such 'Get Innocuous' melts away into a torrent of bass and distortion, with a bassline somewhat similar to 'Losing My Edge'.

'Time To Get Away' is angular and funky, like Prince and Talking Heads in one convenient package. With fantastically ramshackle percussion it is also exceptionally well produced.

First single 'North American Scum' is in your face, a diatribe on what it's like to be an American band on tour in the modern world. It shows Murphy's increasing lyrical maturity and is at once insightful and funny.

Based around a portion of the aforementioned 45:33, 'Someone Great' is undoubtedly Murphy's most emotionally resonant recording to date. Washes of acid, synthesizers and a glockenspiel merge to create something epic in scale yet shamelessly modern in sound. Lyrics that deal with loss and confusion cannot help but raise the hairs on the back of BlackPlastic's neck... "I wish that we could talk about it, but there... That's the problem". It may take a few listens to truly appreciate but as the electronics gradually build and engulf the subject matter of the song you cannot help but realise this is a man who has made his most important track to date. "There shouldn't be this reign of silence, but what are the options when someone great is gone?"

'All My Friends' is another departure. Less electronic than anything else on the album so far it rides a beautiful kraut rock piano line that continues throughout the whole song. Distorted guitars slice in and out whist Murphy waxes lyrical about that universal sense of not quite knowing what you're doing with your life. "You spend your first five years trying to get with the plan and the next five years trying to be with your friends again..." he yells. As with 'Someone Great', the beauty of 'All My Friends' is the way it combines absolutely ball-achingly fantastic melody and production with lyrics that not just sound cool but actually mean something. To see this song live would be something very, very special.

At eight minutes and tweny-nine seconds, 'Us v Them' is the longest track on offer. A throbbing post-punk rant against, well, whoever. More reminiscent of some of the best material from LCD's first album and early singles, 'Us v Them' is still great. A soundtrack to quit your job to on a sunny day.

'Watch The Tapes' is in and out, cut and shut post-punk funk. It sounds unstoppable and it probably is. Just when it's arrived with a lovely stripped-back percussion wig out it ends, giving way to...

'Sound of Silver'. The title track is possibly the most minimal track here. Featuring a simple vocal refrain repeated throughout its 7-minute plus duration 'Sound of Silver' is almost an instrumental with words. Lord knows what it's about... The music itself? Silver it does sound, piano riffs fall from space, clicks and high-hats drift by, Murphy's voice turns into an instrument itself. This is pure abstraction, more like 45:33 than anything else here... Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space.

And so to album closer 'New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down'. It's been discussed on these pages before but by God is this a good track. It may be less experimental than everything else here, essentially this sounds like the greatest track Bowie never made, but it is still a departure for LCD Soundsystem and it is done so well. Murphy intelligently dissects post-millennial NY, critiquing what the city has become from the point of view of someone utterly besotted with the city. Like The Velvet Underground's 'Heroin' it sounds like an elegant love song to a woman impossible to live with yet impossible to live without. Indeed perhaps on some levels it is... When Murphy wails "Like a death of the heart, Jesus where do I start? But you're still the one pool where I'd happily drown..." BlackPlastic could almost break down and cry.

Sound of Silver is already not getting the attention and reviews it deserves from the mainstream press. Here is an album so well structured and considered it undoubtedly deserves a spot within your collection. It will make you want to dance, break stuff, cry, make music and it just might change your life.